Ten Steps Towards School Staff Wellbeing

Ten steps towards school staff wellbeing Lauren Garland, Tim Linehan, Natalie Merrett, Jaime Smith and Charlotte Payne Foreword Concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people are currently in the public spotlight. However, any conversation about supporting our children’s wellbeing must also include how we support our teachers. We must do more to support school leaders, teachers About Anna Freud National Centre and other school staff to ensure that their mental health and wellbeing is prioritised. If we don’t recognise for Children and Families the importance of this we will fail not only staff, but the children and young people they support. Who we are What we do The huge response that we received to this consultation tells us that education professionals Anna Freud National Centre for Children We bring together leaders in have much to say and share about their own wellbeing and Families has developed and delivered neuroscience, mental health, social in school. We have been given the opportunity to pioneering mental health care for care and education to work together to hear about the fantastic and creative work already over 65 years. improve understanding and practice. taking place in schools all over the country. These contributions give us a strong and encouraging Our aim is to transform current mental Our goal is to develop, disseminate foundation for exploring the best way forward to health provision in the UK by improving the and deliver the best possible evidence- ensure that our schools are wellbeing schools, quality, accessibility and effectiveness of based treatment, through scientific prioritising the mental health and wellbeing of the treatment.We believe that every child and innovation, research and collaboration and whole school community. their family should be at the heart of the underpinned by the direct experience and This resource is based on the views of school staff care they receive, working in partnership insight of children and their families. who participated through our Schools in Mind learning network and those who responded to our Teacher Tapp with professionals. survey. I would like to thank every single one of them for Our vision is a world where children and their participation. I hope that this resource provides families are supported effectively to build some helpful materials and encourages schools to on their strengths and to achieve their reflect that if they want to make a success of promoting children’s mental health, this can only be achieved by goals in life. giving the staff wellbeing the consideration it deserves. Our Patron: Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge The Anna Freud Centre, operating as the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, is a registered charity, number 1077106, and a company limited by guarantee, company number 03819888. Jaime Smith Registered address Website Director of Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools, 12 Maresfield Gardens, London, NW3 5SU www.annafreud.org Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families Other addresses Telephone 1st Floor, Jordan House, 47 Brunswick Place, London, N1 6EB 020 7794 2313 38 Mayton Street, London, N7 6QR Email Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, [email protected] Oxford Road, M13 9PL Ten steps towards school staff wellbeing 1 Introduction There is no question that teachers and school There is also an ethical imperative to ensure leaders are committed to working as hard as ever teachers and their colleagues are well supported to support children and young people to flourish when it comes to their mental health and and reach their full potential. However, the wellbeing. Teaching is a tough job. It can be contexts they are working in can be challenging. immensely rewarding but also physically and Schools are operating in a climate of limited emotionally draining. Almost a fifth (19%) of staff resource; the hours can be long and the workload who responded to our consultation said that their and pressure great. As well as supporting pupils work never has a positive impact on their mental to achieve academically, staff may encounter wellbeing. This resource draws on the views and children, young people and families who are experiences of school staff from around the experiencing complex issues in their lives. There country to explore what makes their working lives may be serious concerns over safeguarding, and challenging, and to suggest some practical steps there is some evidence to suggest an increase schools could take to help improve staff wellbeing. in the prevalence of children’s behavioural and emotional problems over recent years.1,2 There are at least three reasons why it is important and timely to address this issue. The first is that the government’s Green Paper on children’s mental health puts schools at the heart of promoting mental health for young people.3 To achieve this, schools must first identify the needs of staff and find out why some struggle with the pressures of the job. Second, there is a growing movement acknowledging the need for employers to promote the mental health of their staff. Mind’s Mental Health at Work campaign, About the consultation funded by The Royal Foundation, is one example of this. Finally, many schools face recruitment and This resource is based on a school staff wellbeing 2. Schools in Mind consultation retention issues, and the current interest in staff consultation which ran in May 2018 through our Through our Schools in Mind learning network we wellbeing provides an opportunity to look at how Schools in Mind learning network. Respondents invited school staff, in any role, to respond to a improving the experience of staff might perhaps were self-selecting. The consultation approach set of open-ended questions. The online survey contribute to addressing these issues. aimed to capture the views of a large number of was open and publicly accessible for eight days school staff over a brief time, as part of a broader during May 2018. We received 684 responses to set of activities the AFNCCF is undertaking to the survey. support schools to become ‘wellbeing schools’. The consultation consisted of two parts: School staff were asked to provide details of approaches or initiatives that have worked well in their setting, several of which appear in this 1. Working with Teacher Tapp resource as case studies, together with case studies collected at regional Schools in Mind Teacher Tapp is a mobile app through which events during July 2018. 1 Deighton, J., Lereya, T., Patalay, P., Casey, P., Humphrey, N., & Wolpert, M. (2018). Mental Health Problems in 11-14 year-olds: school staff in the UK answer three questions Results from the first HeadStart annual survey of 30,000 children . London: CAMHS Press. each day. Across three days in May 2018, we 2 Fink, E., Patalay, P., Sharpe, S., Holley, S., Deighton, J., Wolpert, M. (2015). Mental health difficulties in early adolescence: A Journal of Adolescent Health asked teachers nine closed-ended questions comparison of two cross-sectional studies in England from 2009 to 2014. , 56, 502-507. relating to staff wellbeing via the app. Each 3 Department of Health and Department for Education (2017) Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health question received over 2,400 responses. Provision: a Green Paper https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/664855/Transforming_children_and_young_people_s_mental_health_provision.pdf Quantitative data and methodological detail are included in Appendix B. 2 Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families Ten steps towards school staff wellbeing 3 Is there a staff mental health lead or champion who is responsible for 1 coordinating the school’s approach to staff mental wellbeing, and ensuring it remains on the agenda? Is there a mental health policy that addresses the needs of staff? Is it regularly 2 reviewed? How is the policy embedded and communicated so that all staff are aware of it? Ten steps How does the ethos of the school promote openness about mental 3 wellbeing, and encourage staff to feel comfortable sharing concerns? towards school Are there opportunities for supervision to help staff feel confident they are 4 taking the right decisions when supporting pupils experiencing complex staff wellbeing issues (including safeguarding and mental health, for instance)? Every school is different, and when it comes to Could supervision be offered outside of line management, for those who do supporting staff wellbeing what works will vary 5 not feel comfortable approaching their manager with concerns about their according to the unique environment of each mental wellbeing? Do staff know how to access external sources of support? setting. Our consultation has highlighted the diversity of approaches to supporting the mental Could measures to reduce workload or to limit hours spent working outside health and wellbeing of staff. We have outlined ten questions, based on the views of staff who 6 of the school day be trialled – for example, by reviewing marking policies and responded, that schools may wish to bear in mind email protocols? Does the senior leadership team (SLT) lead by example when approaching staff wellbeing. These questions when it comes to limiting emailing at evenings and weekends? are considered in greater detail in the Thinking about boxes throughout this resource. Is there a comfortable, dedicated physical space within the school where 7 staff members can

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